prisons

Prison Suicide Watch Was Once a Staff Job. “Inmate Observers” Are Cheaper.

[Read Part 1 of this story here] Up until 2019, monitoring the people in the suicide watch cells at South…

April 6, 2026

Jair Bolsonaro, Enemy of Books, Now in Brazil’s Prison Reading Program

In 2020, Brazil’s then-president Jair Bolsonaro criticized grade-school didactic books for having “too much written in them.” Apparently the Left,…

April 2, 2026

With Suicide Watch Full, Prisoners Now Kept in Makeshift Cells

A decade ago when I transferred to South Central Correctional Facility, a medium-security Tennessee prison privately operated by CoreCivic, there…

April 1, 2026

Georgia Lawmakers’ “Number-One Priority” is Literacy, Except in Prisons

Georgia legislators say they're going all-in to improve literacy rates. On March 10 the House approved a budget proposal of…

March 19, 2026

How Tennessee’s Anti-LGBTQ+ Bills Are Already Playing Out in Prison

Through my three decades of incarceration in Tennessee, I’ve seen attitudes toward LGBTQ+ prisoners like myself change a lot. But…

March 16, 2026

Tennessee Prison Guards Want to Wear Body Cams. Prisoners Want That, Too.

Tennessee’s GOP-supermajority legislature seems to have found a bipartisan idea it can support: body-worn cameras for corrections officers in the…

March 4, 2026

Georgia “One Strike Act”: Even More Life Sentences, Even Less Parole

In late February, senators in Georgia introduced a bill known as the One Strike Act. Though the name—a riff of…

March 2, 2026

When Prisons Ban Visitors With Felony Records, Everybody Loses

On August 29, 2020—a date I had been counting down to for 10 years—I walked out of South Central Correctional…

February 19, 2026

Audit: Widespread Failures in Federal Prisons’ Use of Halfway House System

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is not only continuing to incarcerate people past the point when they should have…

February 18, 2026

“An Attempt to Shift This Dynamic”—House Revives Prison Libraries Act

On January 27 lawmakers reintroduced the Prison Libraries Act, the first federal bill to establish and expand library services within…

January 28, 2026